


a new life (she has found)

by KASE1248



Category: Saints Row
Genre: Canon Compliant, Early in Canon, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mild Language, Never Beta Read, Not Beta Read, Tags Are Hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:47:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27771757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KASE1248/pseuds/KASE1248
Summary: It’s a little after midnight when Johnny opens his door to Roxxi.
Kudos: 1





	a new life (she has found)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm procrastinating my other fanfics rn so have an old drabble from one of my older fandoms: Saints Row. Saints Row is one my favourite game series ever, and Saints Row 2 is possibly my favourite game of all time. the series as a whole is 18+ (heavy sex, drugs, violence) but this particular drabble is tame, dw: just some mild language and alcohol use and implied intimate partner violence.
> 
> I have a bunch of drabbles and one-shots lying around for a few fandoms and I really wanna get around to posting them on here; if only to get them out of my head (and my notebooks). maybe I'd even create a series just for random scenes and drabbles I've written over the years, just for fun, honestly.

It’s a quiet night.

Well, as quiet as it can be with that storm lashing away outside. Johnny’s got his TV turned up loud enough for even the neighbours to hear it clearly and it still isn’t enough to drown out the rain lashing against the windows or the wind shaking the very house.

There had been some crashes of thunder and lightning earlier but that seems to have passed for the moment. The sky is just attempting to drown the world right now.

The shops had all shut early and even the local fast food places have closed for the night, due to flooding or electrical problems. Johnny’s stuck reheating some leftover pizza from a couple days ago.

Even his phone is quiet, no gang activity to be seen apparently; at least, nothing warranting a mass text or call to arms. There’s probably deals going down somewhere, always is, but nothing out in the open in this kind of weather.

Which is why the last thing Johnny expects to hear is a knock at his door.

He almost doesn’t hear it at first. He has to mute the TV and crook his head to strain over the sound of the storm. It’s quiet for a few moments and he’s about to put it down to hearing things in the bad weather when it comes again. Louder and a bit more insistent.

Who the fuck is out bothering him in this kind of weather?

Whatever it is, he’s not interested. He’s got two-day old pizza, cold beer and a night of shitty TV calling his name, so whoever it is, they can just fuck right off.

He swings the door open, intending to tell his caller exactly that… but the words die on his lips when he sees that it’s Roxxi.

It’s not so much that it’s her that causes him pause, but rather, how she looks on his doorstep.

First of all, she’s soaking wet. Not surprising, given the weather after all. Her hair is a length of dripping rat’s tails at this point; her make-up streaked and messy from the rain; her top thin enough and pale enough to turn almost completely see-through. She’s hunched over a little, her arms wrapped around her torso, like she’s cold, but she doesn’t seem to be shivering. She’s never looked so thin before.

She’s also never looked so scared before. Johnny doesn’t know her that well, but what he does know of her is confident to the point of cocky and self-assured to the point of arrogant. It’s strange, to see her looking so… flighty.

But what really catches Johnny’s attention is the mark on her cheek.

It looks like the beginnings of a bruise. It’s not the only one. There’s a cut on her lip, and some suspicious-looking marks on her arms. He can almost see – or imagine – the ones under her thin top or on her back.

“What the fuck happened to you?” he greets. Maybe she got into a fight?

“I need a place to stay for the night,” she says in lieu of an answer. Her voice is shaky, although from the cold or from something else, Johnny can’t quite decipher. “Sorry, I know it’s late.”

“What’s wrong with your apartment?” he asks, but he invites her in. No way is he gonna turn her away in this weather, not with her apartment being all the way on the other side of the city. Although, he’s beginning to wonder if that’s where she came from.

“Not safe,” she rubs her arms, dripping water all over the floor. Her eyes look red, like she might have been crying.

“Rollerz?” Her apartment is right in the middle of their territory; if she suspected there was something going down nearby, it’d make sense for her to get out of there, given that she’s running with the Saints. Even in this weather.

“Nah, it’s nothing like that,” she shakes her head. “I’ve, um, I’ve got this ex?”

He glances sharply at her cheek. He doesn’t like the sound of an ex who makes her apartment unsafe for her to stay in. Especially paired with her bruises.

“It’s just for tonight,” she swiftly switches topic, shuffling her feet awkwardly in the hallway. “If it’s alright? I mean, I can find somewhere else, I can deal,” she trails off, chewing her lip. There’s that lack of confidence again, as if she’s expecting him to just kick her out.

“Yo, relax. You can take the sofa. Share some beer. Grab a shower, instead of trailing water everywhere, y’know?”

She shrugs limply. “I don’t have anything to change into. It’s fine. I’ll manage.”

Johnny snorts and shakes his head. “Nah, don’t worry. I got some stuff you can borrow.”

She looks at him, still faintly unsure. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

“S’nothing. Bathroom’s on the left.”

He digs through his closet to find some spare clothes for her to change into. They’re buried in boxes he meant – but could never bring himself – to throw out. He leaves them outside the bathroom and returns to his shitty cop TV show.

She reappears in the lounge around twenty minutes later, looking much more like herself. Out of the tops he’d left, she’d grabbed a long-sleeved one that covered her bruises: as expected. She pads across the room, and curls up on the available armchair, since Johnny’s stretched out on the sofa. He still reaches to hand her a beer.

“The hell are you watching?” she asks, sounding much more like her usual self.

“No fucking clue,” he grunts. “Clothes fit alright?”

“Yeah,” she runs a fingers around the collar of the top. “Girlfriend’s?”

“Sister’s,” Johnny corrects after a beat. “She don’t need ‘em anymore.”

They settle into a silence; well, as silent as you can when there’s a storm raging outside and a TV blaring inside, trying to compete with the noise.

“What’s the deal with that ex of yours anyway?” Johnny asks suddenly, bluntly.

The question hangs in the air. Roxxi doesn’t look at him, very carefully studying the TV.

“S’complicated. You don’t wanna know.”

He doesn’t respond, simply watches her face, where the bruise is. The silence-of-sorts drags out for a long moment before she kind of shrugs, and drops her gaze to her beer, fiddling with the label on the glass bottle.

“Don’t really talk about it,” her voice is a notch quieter. “He gave me a place to stay when I ran away from my family. Then he kind of turned into them anyway.”

“Sounds shitty,” he responds. _Well said, Johnny_.

“I’m over it.”

Her voice is carefully neutral; it almost sounds like a truth but add in the situational context and it falls flat. If she’s over it, why the hell is she here?

Johnny wonders if you can ever truly be over someone who leaves bruises like that on you. He can imagine that, no matter how many years ago it might end up being – and he doesn’t think it’s been many, since Roxxi’s still pretty young – she’ll still end up seeking shelter with someone else because that ex shows up at her door.

What really strikes Johnny as odd about the situation, though, is that she came all the way to his place. Troy and Dex and even Julius live closer to Roxxi than he does, why didn’t she stop at their place? Why walk all the extra distance in this kind of weather?

Of course, if he finds out that they turned her away, he’s gonna give them a serious lesson in chivalry or some bullshit.

If they didn’t, though, then that means Roxxi never went to them. She needed somewhere safe to stay, and Johnny was her first instinct. He knows he gets protective with Aisha, even if it doesn’t always come across that way, but what has he ever done to Roxxi for her to think of him as a safe place in a scary situation?

He glances at her. She’s still avoiding his gaze, but she’s also laughing at something on the shitty cop show. She looks decidedly more relaxed that she had when she’d turned up on his doorstep, even snuggles down into the armchair to get more comfortable. He thinks he’s glad she trusts him, because that means she trusts someone who’s not an ex.

“Hey,” he catches her attention in the flickering light from the TV, “feel free to stay as many nights as you need, a’ight?”

She glances at him hesitantly but nods her head. “Alright,” she says softly, smiling shyly, and then, so quiet he almost doesn’t hear it, “Thanks, Johnny.”

**Author's Note:**

> if you're asking yourself: did I somehow give Johnny a dead sister? the answer is yes.
> 
> this is an old drabble so I don't really remember the specifics? but I'm pretty sure it was spur of the moment and then I decided to keep it. I feel bad that she doesn't have a name or literally anything other than a death certificate but you could possibly interpret her death as a reason for Johnny joining the Saints.
> 
> as for the rest of it, I only mildly edited this before posting, mostly to make the ending sound a little bit more finished.
> 
>   * title comes from [Face Down](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ux6SlOE9Qk&ab_channel=TheRedJumpsuitApVEVO) by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, which is used in Saints Row 2 (Generation X/Ultor FM).
>   * find me on [tumblr](https://fri3ndlyskies.tumblr.com/).
> 

> 
> || **I do not grant permission for anyone to host my work anywhere other than _archiveofourown.org_. I do not support the monetization of my work through third-party sources or apps. Please respect this.** ||


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